SE Mods

I think I'm done for now. I'm fine with the SE bridge and I might do the washer trick to make the bridge sit snugly around the post. I'll be getting Gibson amber knobs or PRS amber lampshade knobs in the future.

Mike Turk Hot 59 bridge pickup
Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro neck pickup
Schaller straplocks
Gotoh Vintage Style tuners
Graphtech TUSQ nut
CTS 500k potentiometers
Russian K40Y PIO 0.22uf capacitor
Switchcraft toggle switch and jack
Gibson Gold bell knobs

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Sweet. I am planning to put creme rings and zebra open coil pickups in mine in addition to the lampshades. This was the mockup I did of it:

2014-02-22135948.jpg


I have a zebra DiMarzio Steve's Special incoming for the bridge. The neck pickup is out of another SE. If those don't work tonally, I just also scored a set of round bobbin 59/09s off ebay that I would probably put some nickle covers on with the black rings, so it would look like this:

2014-02-22140123.jpg

Personally I like the original version with the covered pickups and black knobs. You have to do what "you" want to do, I understand that. It will always be an awesome guitar.
 
Oh man what a big mistake
The bone nut was installed improperly, and way too low
The replacment isnt better at all and my slight whammy bends make everything go sharp
The tusq fit perfect, worked the best - now I'm disgusted with this thing
Still looking for a replacement trem block
I should have left well enough alone


Went to bone nut
anyone know where to source a new trem block for SE custom ?

Steel or brass - doesn't matter

Thanks
 
Oh man what a big mistake
The bone nut was installed improperly, and way too low
The replacment isnt better at all and my slight whammy bends make everything go sharp
The tusq fit perfect, worked the best - now I'm disgusted with this thing
Still looking for a replacement trem block
I should have left well enough alone


It sounds like you have to find a real good guitar man to work on your guitars. I have one about ten miles away that is a retired air force dude that rocks out in a local band and builds handwired tube amps as well. He works on guitars for a very reasonable price. He worked on a nice Epiphone LP I have and it sounds really great now. He rewired it and installed new pots plus wired the kill switch I had put in earlier "correctly", which the first installers didn't know how to do. It is a really quiet two way toggle kill switch. My next one will be a button if I do another one.

There is no substitute for a good guitar man. He is independent from these dealers. The dealers seem to have mediocre commercial tech type people that don't really have their hearts into it.

I would get that nut taken care of immediately by a good guitar man. Check with some of the well known gigging musicians around you and see who they recommend. They know where the good techs are.
 
I was doing some mods to the Santana SE when someone snapped this photo. Notice my safety gear. That kind of thing is important.

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This is my 25th Anni Cu24 with what I call the '85 Mod. A friend and I tried to make our SE's be as close to the original Cu24 as we could. It's got USA HFS/Vintage pups with a USA wiring harness with the 5 way rotary and we added the sweet switch.

SEmod7_zps59a6431c.jpeg
 
This is my 2014 PRS SE 245 in McCarty Tobacco Sunburst.

It's a limited edition, so not only does it come in this beautiful color but also with an ebony fretboard, matching headstock and adjustable stoptail from P22 (no piezo though).


6h8enc.jpg


Here are the things I changed:

- Pickup rings in crème
- Toggle switch in crème
- Amber / Gold knobs
- Graph Tech Black Tusq XL nut
- Kluson Locking Tuners
- Ernie Ball Power Slinkys (11-48)

Everything was a hazzle free swap, I didn't run into any problems. Except for some minor adjustments to the truss rod and intonation for the new strings.

In the near future, I plan on swapping the stock 245 pickups for Seymour Duncan '59 (N) + Custom (B). Stock pickups are okay, I like the neck pickup, but the bridge pickup gets muddy very fast at high gain.
 
This is my 2014 PRS SE 245 in McCarty Tobacco Sunburst.

It's a limited edition, so not only does it come in this beautiful color but also with an ebony fretboard, matching headstock and adjustable stoptail from P22 (no piezo though).


6h8enc.jpg


Here are the things I changed:

- Pickup rings in crème
- Toggle switch in crème
- Amber / Gold knobs
- Graph Tech Black Tusq XL nut
- Kluson Locking Tuners
- Ernie Ball Power Slinkys (11-48)

Everything was a hazzle free swap, I didn't run into any problems. Except for some minor adjustments to the truss rod and intonation for the new strings.

In the near future, I plan on swapping the stock 245 pickups for Seymour Duncan '59 (N) + Custom (B). Stock pickups are okay, I like the neck pickup, but the bridge pickup gets muddy very fast at high gain.


This looks awesome. I love the color of the headstock. Who sells these limited edition ones?
 
This looks awesome. I love the color of the headstock. Who sells these limited edition ones?
+1. I'm ready. So is my wallet. ;)

I got it from "Musikhaus Thomann" located in Germany. Nice-to-know-fact: According to a recent tv documentary, it's the world's largest music retailer.
There are several PRS SE limited editions, including Cu24, Cu24-7, 245 and Tremonti.

http://www.thomann.de/de/search_AR_321036_321039_321038_321037_321040_321043_321041_321042.html

Did you try taking off the pegboard decal with naptha or lighter fluid?

Thanks

If that question was for me:
No I didn't dare touch it. I thought about it though, there are a few third party decals on the bay that might look nice with the colored headstock.
It looks and feels like the decal is underneath the clear finish, so I'd have to sand that down to get to the decal. That's a no-go for me.
 
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